


Don't Forget It, You'll Regret It

by harleygirl2648



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Gary is Vandal Savage's son, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23605024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harleygirl2648/pseuds/harleygirl2648
Summary: Gary's past comes back to haunt him.
Relationships: (background), John Constantine/Gary Green
Comments: 23
Kudos: 56





	Don't Forget It, You'll Regret It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentMaryMargaretSkitz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz/gifts).



> Gary being Vandal Savage's son is too fascinating to not write. This takes place before this post: https://agentmarymargaretskitz.tumblr.com/post/612960638522851328/vandad-savage-you-get-my-drift

Ava loved nothing more than a good, thorough spring cleaning. It was so satisfying to get everything into its proper place, she got to break out her label maker, it was a good time all around. And today’s task was especially exciting - sorting through all of her old Bureau files.

All was well, her sticking a label on one folder, or shredding another, she had three neat piles going. It was fairly mindless, with some music on in the background, it was easy to fall into a routine.

She noted that the current file in her hand was Gary’s file, which she realized she’d never even looked at. After all, Rip had handpicked him (for some reason) and he hadn’t done anything that had made her have a look. She couldn’t help but open it up, not really expecting to find anything except a list of credentials, a master’s degree, things like that.

She was not expecting three pages, completely blacked out before she got to his previous experience. Curiosity getting the best of her, she got up to do more research with Gideon. Only - “I’m sorry, Director Sharpe, but Captain Hunter had that file sealed in my records.”

“Why?”

“Classified, I’m afraid.”

“But it’s _Gary.”_

“Unless my code is overriden, I cannot divulge this information.”

***

Gary was fine with being left alone in the manor. Really, he was. It was more important that he do more research on the other loom pieces, rather than tag along with John - Constantine - and the rest of the Legends on the mission. This was more important. This way they could have a head start, and John wouldn’t end up dead.

That couldn't happen. Not if he could help it.

John had left his house to him. The thought still made Gary a little warm, along with the memory of that kiss. Maybe - maybe now they could start talking more! About their relationship, about whatever they are, just talking in general. Oh, just to _talk_ again would be a wonderful thing.

He was lost in those thoughts when he heard a door rattling. The same door that John had been trapped behind, that Gary had helped rescue him from before bungling the whole thing again. He got to his feet, already nervous but starting a fireball in his hand when the door flew open.

The fire died out in his fist, his grip going completely slack as a black boot stepped through, and piercing eyes gazed back into his.

“Gareth,” Vandal Savage smiled, all the warmth a smile with nothing behind it but malice.

Gary cursed his poor circulation as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor, out cold before his head hit the carpet.

“Gareth.”

_Gareth (Gary wasn’t his name yet, it wouldn’t be for a while now) jumped up from his chair in the library, Jane Eyre tumbling out of his hands and falling on its spine as it hit the rug. “Y-yes, Father, w-what do you need?”_

_Vandal Savage stepped forward, toe of his boot pressing down on the book spine, effectively cracking it. “Gareth, this isn’t the swordplay manual I told you to memorize.”_

_“No, it’s not.”_

_“What's that? I can’t hear you. Speak up."_

_Gareth lifted his head, his body shrinking back. “I said it’s not, I-I’m sorry. I finished it already, I was just-”_

_“So, you think you’ve already learned all you can?”_

_“I didn’t say-”_

_“So if we sparred, right now, you could land a critical hit on me?”_

_“I - no, I don’t-” Gareth was cut off again by a rapier pressed into his hand. His hands were sweating too much to keep a firm grip on it. “Father, I said I wasn’t ready, I don’t want to-”_

_“Block me.”_

_“I don’t want to fight!” Gary pleaded desperately, raising the sword against his will to try and shield the blow to his face. The sword clattered to the floor, easily batted away by its opponent as Savage stepped closer, the blade barely missing his jaw, “That's not fair, you can’t - it’s - it’s an invalid point if it’s to the face, it’s not fair-”_

_His foot bumped the chair leg as he walked backwards, tripping and falling onto his back, narrowing missing the brick fireplace. He looked up into Savage’s face with pleading eyes and words, screaming when the blade came down, covering his face in a pathetic attempt at protection._

_The blade made an awful screech as it scrapes against the rough surface of the bricks, leaving behind one jagged white line just beside Gareth’s head. Gareth let out the breath that had burned to hold in._

_A hand was in front of him. Gareth blinked back tears and took it, immediately wishing he hadn’t. The grip was strong enough he could swear the bones in his hand rubbed against each other._

_“What do you say?”_

_“Thank you.”_

Gary woke up with a gasp, rubbing both sides of his face with his hands in an attempt to pull himself together. Maybe - maybe what he saw was just an awful dream. A horrible memory that escaped to the surface from him repressing all of them for so long.

He heard a noise downstairs.

Okay, it wasn’t a dream.

Time to panic.

He carefully crept along the carpet, dipping into the greenhouse. He had an idea, a fantastical idea but it would have to do. He tried calming himself down as he pulled out dried toadstools, grinding them as quietly as possible. Dropping in a few petals of asphodel, he let out a shaky breath. _He could do this_. He could mix this potion, and he - he didn't have to be afraid. He added the pulp of a silver apple and pounded until it was all liquidy. He picked up the bowl and drank all of it down, gagging on the flavor of apple, mint, and a flavor too close to blood. Rubbing his face again, he picked up the weeding knife and made his way down to the main room.

The fireplace crackled, letting off sparks that illuminated the figure looking through Gary’s storage boxes he’d brought from his own apartment. Gary tiptoed into the room, back hugging the wall. He was barely breathing.

“Gareth, come here.”

Gary’s spine straightened up completely, and he walked away from the wall, approaching Savage. Savage hadn’t even turned to look at him, reaching into the box and pulling out a tortoiseshell hair comb, decorated with a gold and silver heading, and a single pearl at the top. “Good to see you kept this. Saved me a trip.”

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be-”

“Did I ever tell you where this comb came from?”

“It was - it was my mother’s, I know that, put it d-”

Savage chuckled, turning it over in his hand. “Took it off a Romanov daughter while I supervised the cleanup back in the day. Scared the hell out of your mother when I told her about it one night.”

Gary felt his stomach turn over.

“I was always drawn to this little trinket, ever since I scrubbed the blood off of it. Never could quite explain it.” He finally turned his head to look at Gary, still smiling. “But now I know.”

“You can’t be here,” Gary told him with a shaky voice as he approached him. “Why - why do you want that? And now? I’ve had - I’ve had it for over twenty years and you never-”

“It appears we’re looking for the same items, son,” Savage said, setting it down into a box on the table. Gary saw the glint of Shakespeare’s ring beside it.

Color drained out of Gary’s face. “It’s - it can’t be a piece of the - of the loom.”

“Oh, it is,” Savage grinned even more. “And you’ve had it with you all this time. Along with all of these other pieces. Glad to see you’ve finally taken some initiative.”

Gary grit his teeth, tried to glare at him as he folded his arms. “I don’t know how you got here, but I’m sending you back.”

Savage laughed out loud, leaning back to look at Gary. “Oh, Gareth, I would love to watch you try.”

_Gareth was fifteen years old, and had spent the day locked in his room. Again. But this time, he had already packed his bag. A toothbrush, toothpaste, all the cash he had (even the change),, the only picture of his mother, the ticket stub to see his first and only movie that he’d snuck off to when he was nine, and a pen. All that was left was_

_He’d gotten good at picking the lock to his room, but had never actually escaped, too afraid each time to step outside the door. Now he was finally stepping through, creeping downstairs to the library. Finding nobody inside, he darted over to the mantle, picking up his mother’s hair comb she was wearing in the picture._

_“Gareth.”_

_Gareth nearly dropped his bag, whirling around with the comb in hand to Savage staring at him, not even a fake pleasant smile. “Gareth, what are you doing?”_

_“I just - I don’t have - I need to run into town, and I’ll be back in an hour, I was just - just looking at-”_

_“Gareth, don’t lie to me. I told you, if you’re going to lie, I should believe it. Get back upstairs.”_

_Gareth clutched the comb so tightly that the teeth bit into his wrist. “N-no.”_

_“Gareth.”_

_“I said no!” he said, or rather, shouted. He tried to head for the side door and felt that bone crushing grip on his other wrist. Struggling made it hurt worse, but he kept trying. “Get off me!”_

_A swift backhand shut him up, and he felt himself being dragged back across the carpet. “Be reasonable, Gareth, put it down, go back upstairs, and I’ll forget this ever happened.”_

_“No! No, I won’t! You can forget, but I can’t! You - you didn’t tell me what happened to her.”_

_**Snap**._

_He grit his teeth as tears escaped his eyes at the pain, as his shoes tried resisting the smooth wood floors. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me about - about her, or the other ones before me-”_

_“You never needed to know, Gareth. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be on your own, don’t you understand that?”_

_“I’d - I’d rather be on my own than be with you!”_

_Just as Savage turned around this time, Gareth’s frantic free hand caught the side of the lamp at the end table, and he grabbed it, swinging out and somehow clocking Savage right across the face. He dropped his wrist, but Gareth swung hard again and got him to the ground this time with a loud clang._

_(that clang still echoes in his dreams and he doesn’t know if he’s having a nightmare or not)_

_Gareth wheezed, dropping the lamp and staggering back before his back hit the edge of the fireplace. The comb fell out of his hand, and as he reached for it and put it back in his bag, he watched Savage struggle to sit up. There was no sign of affection, even false affection, in his face. Instead, it was an animalistic sort of sneer, baring all of his teeth and hatred. Gareth was just getting to his feet, steadying himself with the stand of fireplace tools, when Savage lashed out with a hidden blade. Gareth let out a shriek, his hand grabbing the closest tool, the poker. And he brought it down hard onto Savage’s hand, piercing through and sticking into the floor._

_Gareth trembled as he picked up his bag, before bolting towards the door. Savage’s shouts were loud, and furious, and traveled down the staircase that Gareth fled down._

_“You’re nothing without me, Gareth! You know I’m right!”_

_Gareth shoved the front door open into the sheeting rain, and ran down the front steps, his ears ringing so badly he didn’t realize how far he was running until he was at the local bus stop, two miles away. He didn’t catch his breath until he was sitting in the very back of the bus, and he looked down at his broken, swollen wrist. The rain pattered against the window. The bus’s brakes sighed as they were released, as the bus lurched forward and started back on its route._

_Father wasn’t here._

_Gareth was alone._

_He began sobbing in the empty bus. To this day, he didn’t know if he had sobbed out of pain, out of fear, or out of relief._

“What are you collecting the pieces for, my son?”

 _My son_ was only for when Father wanted something, it always meant worse pain down the road.

“None of your business,” Gary’s shaky voice declared. “I’m just - looking. Curiosity reasons.”

Savage looked over at him, holding up a picture. “Not for him.”

Gary suddenly lunged forward, and even though he had an inch on his father now, Savage held the picture back at arm’s length. “Ah ha, I thought so.”

“Give it back to me, now.”

Savage’s finger and thumb covered up the Beebo Gary was holding on his lap in the picture, but not his or John’s bright, goofy smiles. “Gareth, you know you can’t lie to me, and at least try a bit harder. This house is a Constantine family heirloom, or curse, depending on who you ask. Don’t you both look cozy.”

Gary yanked it back, snatching the comb from the box as well and stepping away from Savage, his heart racing. “I’ll _make_ you leave.”

Savage chuckled. “You know what’s fascinating about that picture? There’s a few of John Constantine scattered about the place, none of you.”

“Camera shy,” he defended, and slipped the comb into his pocket, his hand reaching for the poker and keeping a loose grip on it. Savage picked up the loom pieces in their box, looked over at Gary.

“I’ll be taking that other piece, now.”

“No! You can’t have this. I won’t let you take it. I - I need it.”

“Somebody else needs it more, from all the chatter I've been hearing downstairs.”

Gary gripped the poker tighter, working his jaw.

Savage cocked his head to the side, studying Gary’s expression. “Oh, Gareth,” he sighed. “I know that look.”

Gary said nothing, setting his jaw in a straight line.

“Gareth, you remember why I did what I did?”

“For yourself.”

“No, no. I did it all for love. Everything I did was for love, to have her love me the same way I loved her. I can see that look on your face.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Gareth, we’re blood. You know I only wanted the best for you.” Savage came around the couch, holding his box of pieces. Gary glared at him, but didn’t trust his mouth to not start screaming if he opened it. “Son, in all my years, I was only able to get one piece and I didn't even know about them at the time. Think of what we can do with these.”

“That's why you can never have them,” Gary spat. “I will never let you have these because I know what you’ll do with them.”

Vandal put a hand on his shoulder, Gary tried stepping back but the grip was strong. It wasn’t forceful, but it was strong. “Gareth. Listen to me. I know I wasn’t the best father to you.”

Gary looked away, staring into his reflection in the mirror.

“But I promise you, with these pieces, we can start over. I’ll be better for you. You won’t run away. Your mother wouldn’t have done what she did. It will be a new start for all of us.”

Gary still said nothing. A slow smile spread across Savage’s face.

“With these pieces, you can have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Still nothing.

“Gareth, don’t you understand? With these pieces, he’ll love you back.”

Gary whirled his head around. “Don’t say that. I couldn't - I couldn't do that to him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I - I can't!” Gary finally blurted out. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did that. And - and I don’t have to do that, F-Father, because - because he cares about me. I know he loves me. Magic can’t fix that.”

Savage laughed out loud, in that loud booming voice, but Gary didn’t flinch for once. “Now Gareth, listen to yourself.”

“I am. I’m giving him the pieces to save Astra and himself, and I won’t let you stop me.”

“And then what, Gareth?” Vandal said, rubbing his shoulder. “You give him all the pieces, let him rewrite his past, and where does that leave you in his future? Do you exist in his life? What if his rearrangement means that he never meets you, that you never get to be anywhere with him? Look at yourself. Do you think he’s impressed with you? You know that for all I’ve done and said, Gareth, I’m not a liar. Do you think he will ever come back to you once he gets his life sorted out?”

A tear escaped Gary’s eye, and he dropped the poker to wipe his eye. Every word was crushing, because it was all true. The words ate away at his mind, and his heart, and for just a moment - “But this would change all of that?”

“Of course, Gareth. I can fix it so you’re the only light in his life, his only reason for living. And he’ll never, ever, leave your side.”

Savage grinned as Gary blinked hard a few times, staring at the floor. After a few long, long beats, Gary picked his head back up, eyes glittering as he glared at Savage. “N-no.”

The smile melted off. “What do you mean, _no?”_

“I said NO, Father! I would never - I could never force him to love me, because I’m not like you. I never will be! I don’t care if he never wants to see me ever again if it means he’s alive and happy. I will never, ever be who you wanted me to b-”

Gary let out a harsh shriek, as the knife went deep into his back, slumping forward against Savage’s shoulder, unable to conjure another word with his lips. Savage’s free hand gripped his jaw, forcing his head up to look at him as he tsked, like he was scolding a dog that chewed on the rug.

“Gareth, Gareth. You’ve always been a disappointment to me, but I would’ve thought that you would have at least remembered what I taught you, what I tried to make you understand; I told you over and over again that nobody loves you unless you _force_ them t-”

Gary spat blood into his face and received a hard blow to the face that dropped him to the ground. He rolled over enough so he could look up into Savage’s face, his strength slowly ebbing away. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he - he mixed it right, it should have-

“Now give me that piece, Gareth.”

Gary spat out a little more blood. “It’s not yours, it’s hers. And you’re - you’re wrong. She did what she did because - because it was the only thing she COULD have done that would have hurt you. She didn’t give you the chance to do it yourself.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as the boot came down, and the taste of apples and mint suddenly flooded his mouth.

He then felt oddly cold, slippery drops fall onto his face and he let out a laugh. Oh, he was definitely delirious. Looking up, he grinned, weak and bloodstained as Savage clutched at the wound in the same place in his own back, eventually dropping to the floor, writhing in pain and cursing.

“You - you little -”

_POOF_

Suddenly, Savage vanished in plumes of black smoke, the loom pieces disappearing from their box with him. Gary wheezed, pulling the comb out of his pocket and staring at it. For some reason, it didn’t vanish along with the others.

The pride in having the upper hand vanished as the pain increased, and he couldn’t stop any of his thoughts from flowing - _you failed, you lost the pieces, he’s still out there, you didn’t stop him, John’s still in danger, John doesn’t love you, John could never love you after everything you’ve done, you’re a failure, failure, failure..._

***

John called from the foyer, Charlie by his side. “Gary, we’ve got a piece, where are you?”

Gary usually came down at the first sound of John being home, so this was - unusual. John felt uneasy, his usual state, but still.

He headed down the hallway. Ever since quitting smoking, his nose had cleared some, and he could smell the weak remnants of brimstone coming from the main room.

He was expecting a demon or a hellhound, not the body sprawled out on the bloodstained carpet, barely breathing. Heart falling right to his feet, he dropped down next to “Gary, what happened? What - what happened? Who did this? Gary? Gary, can you hear me?”

There wasn’t an answer, John shouted for Charlie to hail the Waverider as he lifted Gary’s hand to try and get a reading for his pulse.

A bloody decorative hair comb fell out of his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


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